The mayor of South Huron raised the issue of provincial funding for homelessness at a recent council meeting.
George Finch pointed out that in many cases the disparity in funding between rural areas and urban centres goes far beyond the difference in population. Finch said the point has to be made more strongly to provincial officials that there are homeless people sleeping on the steps of town halls in rural communities just as there people sleeping on the steps of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa.
“When you have people literally, sleeping on the steps. In my thirty-year policing career, I never saw anybody sleeping on the town hall steps. In the past winter, there've been two and I sent them to Goderich to the Out of the Cold program, at least once and that's a good start, for sure.”
Finch said the real problem is the lack of attainable housing to get people into permanent situations.
Finch said they're doing what they can but he adds, trying to get everyone on board and working together with limited dollars is always a challenge.
“We're doing what we can, and again, trying to get everyone on board to work together is always a challenge when it comes to the amount of dollars that are available, so I recognize it's a crisis and I'm sure others do also, but our part of the world is not immune to it because it's a crisis and definitely across Ontario.”